Seconds into By My Rocket Comes Fire, the first track on Nick (yes, son of Roy) Harpers fifth studio album, its already abundantly clear why a Times critic was moved to write. Harper has so much musicianship in him that it just leaks out all over the place. A journey through the seven ages of man lashed to a melody that toboggans away at a crazy pace, its helter skelter melody breathlessly suggests Michael Nesmiths Rio en route. The winding, sprawling mystery of Good Bus shows Harper has absorbed a great deal of mid-70s John Martyn and Richard & Linda Thompson, although Intelligent Design?s Dubya cut-ups are already a bit dated  Trans Am, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and numerous anonymous bootleggers were round this way years ago.

In fact, its generally when Harper gets raucous and political that Treasure Island flags. The anti-Bush/Blair rant Knuckledraggers may be heartfelt but his hokey American accent hobbles its effectiveness, and the extremist-shredding call to arms that follows it, Sleeper Cell , is no more convincing.

But there are many more moments when its a pleasure to reflect on the raw, unpolished quality of Harpers playing, singing and writing, something that the major label mill would almost certainly have attempted to grind out of him. Instead, hes free to follow his own idiosyncratic path, to the musics obvious benefit.

The spectral choir of angels that hovers above Real Life is as delightfully unexpected as the white hot shards of his acoustic guitar technique and the encircling birdsong that closes it, disparate elements assembled with care and consideration. And on Bloom the paternal DNA is gloriously apparent. By the albums closer, A Wiltshire Tale, Nicks spinning poetry concrete like a West Country Stanley Unwin. What is there to say but hats off to (boy) Harper?